In face of online poker, some advocates fight against off-reservation casinos

Some people in Congress believe American Indians struck it rich with the establishment of tribal gaming and the passage of the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act in the late 1980s.

But serious problems with education, health care, unemployment and housing remain. Tribes are also dealing with the effect of Internet gaming on their business, off-reservation casinos and political gridlock in Washington, D.C.

“They’ve been very busy in Washington this year,” John Gusik, founding partner of the Franklin Partnership, a Washington, D.C., law and government relations services firm, said Thursday at the Global Gaming Expo. He was moderating a panel discussion on tribal gaming on the final day of the expo at the Sands Expo and Convention Center in Las Vegas.

“There have been 4,500 bills in Congress this year; only 31 have been enacted,” Gusik said. “It’s a do-nothing Congress. Seventy-two bills dealing with tribal issues and none have been enacted. Internet gaming continues to languish in Congress.”

The fate of those bills has also been hurt by the Oct. 1 deadline to enact a budget or face a possible federal government shutdown.

Pete Kirkham, president of Red Maple Consulting, a Springfield, Va., government affairs and political strategy firm, said Congress hasn’t passed any of the 13 appropriation bills needed to fund the government.

“If you represent tribes, they think you must work on Indian gaming all the time,” Kirkham said. “Gaming takes up some time but it’s also about health care, education and housing.”

Kirkham acknowledged that the vast majority of a tribe’s revenue is earned through gaming, but said those dollars go to providing services to the community.

The National Indian Gaming Commission reported $27.9 billion in gaming revenues in 2012, up 2.6 percent from $27.2 billion in 2011.

“Everything is now seen through the prism of gaming,” said Jana McKeag, president of Lowry Strategies, an Alexandria, Va., government and public affairs consulting firm. “Congress believes that tribes have all this gaming money … why do they need (federal dollars)?”

WSOP.com and Ultimate trade barbs over early slip-ups

World Series of Poker Executive Director Ty Stewart [recently] experienced that pain.

Recently, Stewart made light of early troubles that befell Ultimate Poker, the first legal pay-to-play online gambling website in the U.S., which launched April 30.

First, Ultimate was caught using an unlicensed and much maligned service provider to identify new players. Then, a glitch in the website caused two 9 of spades to appear on the flop in a game of hold’em.

“I think the market is ready for a first-class product,” Stewart told Case Keefer of the Las Vegas Sun while touting the World Series of Poker’s planned Nevada-based pay-to-play website.

Last week, the World Series of Poker suffered its own glitch. The unlicensed website briefly went live, letting players gain access to the pay-to-play area.

Caesars Interactive Entertainment, which owns the World Series of Poker, caught the mistake, shut down the site, and notified Nevada gaming regulators.

The laughter you’re hearing emanates from the corporate headquarters of Station Casinos, majority owner of Ultimate Gaming, which operates Ultimate Poker.

Texas on the shortlist for legal online play?

Gov. Brian Sandoval said Thursday he has held preliminary talks with other state governors on partnering with Nevada on Internet poker.

Sandoval didn’t name the states but gaming sources said Texas could be a target.

Sandoval, a Republican, supported Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s brief run for the GOP’s presidential nomination last year. Also, the Texas Legislature is considering the Poker Gaming Act of 2013, which would make it legal in the state to play poker online.

“I’ve talked with a few governors and I’m introducing the concept of compacting,” Sandoval said following a tour of the new corporate headquarters in Las Vegas for BMM International, one of two laboratories that tests gaming equipment for Nevada regulators.

“It’s very much in the early stages and we have a great opportunity because we have the infrastructure and other states have the players,” Sandoval said. “I’m hopeful we’ll continue to talk.”

Nevada Gaming officials frown on business with unsavory service providers

State gaming regulators are looking into the relationship between 2-week-old Internet poker website Ultimate Poker and an unlicensed service provider used to identify new players.

In an email, Gaming Control Board Chairman A.G. Burnett said gaming agents are working with officials from Ultimate, which is majority owned by Station Casinos.

Over the weekend, Ultimate Gaming, parent of Ultimate Poker, said in a statement through a spokesman that on Thurday , it “discontinued” using services from Iovation. The company according to poker news resources, was linked to a 2008 online cheating scandal that brought down Ultimate Bet, which is not related to Ultimate Poker.

Burnett said Iovation was not a registered service provider with Nevada but the company’s services were utilized by CAMS, an Nevada-approved service provider.

Vegas Grinders: OMG Online Poker!

Clearly my life would be better if it weren’t for that friggin’ flush card.

Nevada online poker is here! Kinda-sorta at least for those not on a Mac and/or Verizon. Dan stops by the offices of the new UltimatePoker.com to find an old-school PokerStars crew manning the Station Casinos outpost, while Dave pops in to a near-Strip location to fund his account with real money he someday hopes to play. Things are looking up for the Vegas Grinders crew, but just to be sure it stays that way, poker’s premier mentalist Jared Tendler pops into the VG virtual studio to see how Dave’s doing, and in the process pumps us full of general life wisdom-science for optimal ways to combat extended downswings, “beaten dog syndrome,” and Mid-WSOP burnout. Yet in the end he tells Dave not to read his new book, WTF?

Ambassador role a declaration Stations Casinos is ready to play

Station Casinos-owned Ultimate Poker, which has yet to launch its pay-to-play website in Nevada, has a brand ambassador.

The company, which has been licensed by state gaming regulators but is waiting for approval of its technology by testing laboratories, announced Tuesday that it has signed poker champion Antonio Esfandiari to promote the website.

Esfandiari has made a name for himself behind the microphone as a commentator for ESPN’s coverage of the World Series of Poker and at the tables for his victories on the World Poker Tour.

He made his biggest splash last summer when he won a record poker jackpot of $18.3 million in capturing the World Series of Poker’s $1 million buy-in “Big One for One Drop” at the Rio.

Says real-money online poker will be live by June 30

Station Casinos LLC posted its third consecutive profitable quarter on Tuesday. The locals gaming company’s bottom line continued to benefit from its aggressive marketing efforts, despite a competitive Las Vegas market and a sluggish economic recovery.

The privately held company also announced it will acquire a 50.1 percent ownership stake in Fertitta Interactive LLC, which operates Ultimate Gaming. Fertitta Interactive launched Ultimate Gaming’s free-play site on Facebook earlier this year, with a real money site expected to launch in Nevada by June 30.

Marc Falcone, executive vice president and chief financial officer with Station Casinos, declined to disclose the purchase price. He expected the all-cash deal for Fertitta Interactive to close by the end of the month.

Boyd Gaming, Station Casinos, Golden Nugget ready for internet play

Three companies were granted interactive gaming licenses by the Nevada Gaming Commission on Thursday as the lineup for the state’s potential online poker market grew more crowded.

Commissioners licensed Boyd Gaming Corp. the Golden Nugget ownership and Fertitta Interactive – which includes the owners of Station Casinos and operators of Ultimate Fighting Championship – to launch online poker websites as soon as the technology is approved.

The website can be accessed only by people age 21 and older playing on computers or mobile devices within Nevada.

Boyd Gaming Executive Vice President Bob Boughner told gaming commissioners the company believes online poker in Nevada will be a $180 million a year business and would damage the state’s live poker business.

Next stage could mark US re-entry for BwinParty

Boyd Gaming Corp. and Station Casinos, fierce competitors in the locals casino market, could soon take their rivalry to the Internet.

Affiliates of the two companies were tentatively approved Wednesday to operate online poker websites within Nevada’s boundaries by the Gaming Control Board. The Nevada Gaming Commission will take up the matter Oct. 18.

The companies may launch their poker operations at different times. The sites can be accessed only from computers and mobile devices within Nevada’s borders.

Boyd Gaming officials said they will wait until the company’s online partner, bwin.party gaming, is licensed by state gaming regulators. Ultimate Gaming, a subsidiary of Fertitta Interactive, which is controlled by the founders of Station Casinos, plans to launch a Nevada gaming site as soon a technology achieves the various levels of approval.

Following in Caesars' footsteps, but no plans yet for WSOP-Fresno

Two Las Vegas-style casinos, including one that is a partnership with Station Casinos LLC, will be built miles from their traditional reservation land in California after Gov. Jerry Brown signed two compacts on Friday.

Brown’s decision allows the North Fork Rancheria of Mono Indians near Fresno, Calif., and the Enterprise Rancheria of Maidu Indians near Marysville, Calif., to pursue plans to have the federal government put land into trust on which the tribes will build casinos.

In a letter to U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar , Brown said approval of the two casinos is unlikely to allow many other tribes to expand gambling operations in a similar way.

“I expect there will be a few requests from other tribes that will present the same kind of exceptional circumstances to support a similar expansion of tribal gaming land,” Brown wrote.

Supreme Court decision could stifle expansion of Indian gaming

A lawsuit seeking closure of the tiny Gun Lake casino in Michigan could have a major effect on the nation’s Indian casino market, an industry that posted $26.73 billion in revenue in 2010, according to the Indian Gaming Industry Report.

Analysts say this week’s U.S. Supreme Court decision to remand the case to the U.S. Court of Appeals could make it more difficult to fund tribal casino projects or even delay some projects until the matter is settled. The $160 million resort targeted in the lawsuit is in Wayland Township, 20 miles south of Grand Rapids. It was developed and is managed by Las Vegas-based Station Casinos LLC.

“The decision has the potential to change how the federal government takes land into trust for tribes,” said Steven Light, co-director of the Institute for the Study of Tribal Gaming Law and Policy at the University of North Dakota. “It’s potentially a huge problem for expansion of gaming for recently recognized tribes.”

Time for some of the major legal developments in gaming over the past week, as selected by @GamingCounsel:

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Netherlands I-Gaming Attitudes – Probably the most interesting international story of the past week is the ruminations from the Netherlands that the new government may be interested in liberalizing the country’s Internet gambling laws. It’s not clear how far this process would go and what games or betting would be included, but a lot could happen in what has been a very restricted online market in the EU thus far. [eGaming Review]

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Nova Scotia Says No (That’s in Canada, Folks) – Another international piece is the recent pronouncement of the premier of Nova Scotia that that province will not pursue a government-sanctioned Internet gaming offering. Nova Scotia’s finance minister added that any estimate of the revenues associated with Internet gaming would be “a wild guess.”(That’s an interesting comment given that the province of Ontario has publicly estimated that it could turn a profit of at least C$100 million/year; many have questioned the basis for such a projection.) The CEO of the Nova Scotia Gaming Corp. (rightly) pointed out recently that Internet gambling will continue to grow whether the government is involved or not. [Globe and Mail]

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Betfair Move – Hot on the heels of the Betfair IPO announcement, there is speculation that Betfair may move out of the UK to a jurisdiction with a lower tax rate. William Hill and Ladbrokes recently moved to Gibraltar because they perceived that UK taxes were too high. Some are saying Betfair may make a similar play. With competition increasing among Internet gaming jurisdictions, more and more operators are paying attention to applicable taxes. [CasinoGamblingWeb]

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Station Casinos Trademark Infringement/Cybersquatting Suit – Station Casinos Inc. has sued two website operators in Federal Court in Nevada: SL Enterprises (www.vegasstationcasino.com) and Ryan Murphy (www.stationcasinos.org). If the Station marks have sufficient rights attached to them through use and/or registration, they should have a good case. This kind of thing happens in i-gaming all the time and it’s a big problem for operators; it’s tremendously time-consuming and potentially expensive to vigilantly prosecute misappropriation of property rights. [Las Vegas Sun]

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PartyGaming in Venezuela – PartyGaming plc has set up an online poker offering in Venezuela. This continues two trends: Party’s continuing march around the world into new markets and the increased interest in South America as a lucrative and growing market for interactive gaming. [Gambling Zion]